Research groups of WSL and Agroscope at Campus Cadenazzo are conducting a study on the epidemiology of Flavescene dorée (FDp) in Ticino's vineyards. The project is carried out in cooperation with the Cantonal Plant Protection Service and is supported by the Federal Office for Agriculture.

The GRADIENT project consists of the identification of relationships between forest fires, weather, land cover and socio-economic variables from long-term observations, the reconstruction of recent fire history and the exploration of post-fire vegetation dynamics and recovery using time series satellite images.

During the creation of the national park “Parc Adula” a written survey will be conducted. Goal of the study is to find out what locals think about of the creation of “Parc Adula” and which knowledge they have about it.

The chestnut gall wasp ist the most significant insect pest for the genus Castanea. Since being first observed in 2009 it has spread to chestnut forests all over Switzerland. In the meantime its population is controlled by a natural enemy. We monitor the long term evolution of the system chestnut tree - gall wasp - natural antagonist.

At the WSL in Bellinzona we started developing a new monoplotting interface with the aim of offering an intuitive platform for georeferencing and orthorectifying ordinary individual photographs in order to produce georeferenced vector data by drawing them directly on the pictures and exchanging them with traditional GIS-Systems.

The WSL initiated together with other institutions a research program aiming at high quality chestnut timber by minimizing the costs and improving the functional features and the stability of the coppice stands.

Swissfire is the new forest fire database of Switzerland, which has been developed in a joint effort by WSL and FOEN (Federal Office for the Environment). Now all information on forest fires is being collected in one central data base, which is an optimal tool for forest fire management.

FireLess II is an innovative wireless sensor network developed by EnvEve SA and WSL in collaboration with the University of Turin allowing the acquisition of real time data for monitoring fuel parameters such as litter and humus moisture in specific forest stands.

Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, to which SLF belongs

The WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF is part of the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL and thus belongs to the ETH Domain. It engages in research and scientific services with focus on snow, avalanches, other alpine natural hazards, permafrost and mountain ecosystems. Its best-known service is the avalanche bulletin.